Down The Tubes
by MysteriousMose
Summary: Everyone now knows Dawn Bellwether for the monster she is, but she's not the only one in Zootopia. A mysterious accident lands her deep beneath the city where another monster offers her a chance for revenge and glory. With nothing to lose, she reluctantly agrees and finds herself caught up in a sinister plot that may spell the end for Zootopia.
1. Into the Monster's Mouth

"Lionfart!"

"Yes, Ms. Bellwether?" came the tired reply.

"I asked you for coffee ten minutes ago. Where is it?"

"I-…Oh. Hold on, I-I'll have it right away."

"You'd better."

Mayor Dawn Bellwether released the button of the pager and reclined in her plush office chair, steepling her fingers as a giddy smile flashed across her muzzle. She hadn't actually asked for coffee. She never did, but she always reminded Lionheart that he had forgotten it. The ewe snickered and swung her dangling legs back and forth like a child in her seat. Her bright mint eyes looked at the placard that sat on her desk. The letters were facing away, but she knew exactly what it read: Mayor Bellwether. And as the new mayor of Zootopia, she'd used her influence to acquit Lionheart of his crimes. She'd even been generous enough to offer him the position as her assistant. Desperate to save face in the wake of his scandal, he'd taken it without a second thought. And over the course of several months she'd made every day a little harder for him until he was exactly as miserable as she had been. She was honestly surprised he hadn't quit by now; he'd never been the most patient lion.

Dawn whirled her chair towards the window and exposed her little pearls of teeth in a grin to the wide world below. The soft sunlight gently touched down on the city and lit up buildings in a rainbow of morning colors. Each district shone with its own palette, natural hues of forest greens, glacier blues, sandy yellows combined with the reoccurring colors of brick and steel and concrete. Already at this early hour the streets bustled; the asphalt and cement formed veins in which the citizens, the eclectic lifeblood of Zootopia, pulsed through from place to place. Dawn's oversized glasses caught the reflections of a thousand animals as they passed city hall. Her eager eyes bored through her lenses and drank in the sights the city offered. Glee poured from her smile at what she saw.

Opportunity.

As acting mayor she'd thrust her hooves into the clay of Zootopia, kneading it, reshaping it into what it was always meant to be: A place where anyone could be anything. And with the distrust she'd sown, predators were leaving, and new doors were opening for mammals just like her; mammals that were small and weak, too timid to compete with the natural charisma that predators naturally held. The masses always looked to the big, the strong, and the assertive to lead them, passing over mammals who actually knew what they were doing. The ewe had been in politics long enough to see how things really were.

"Ms. Bellwether?"

A smirk crawled over the ewe's face as she turned her chair around to address her assistant. In the doorway stood a pale reflection of the city's former mayor, gaunt and slouching in a wrinkled suit. The thick golden mane he'd been so proud of was chopped down to a husk of itself to allow a black collar around his neck; the same collar that every predator in Zootopia was now forced to wear. Dawn met his gaze and peered into the tired, aged eyes that looked back with a resigned dread she was painfully familiar with. She'd seen the same gloomy sheen reflected back at her in mirrors until only a few months ago.

"Ah, there you are," the ewe chimed as she slid her chair up to her desk, "My coffee?"

"Right here," the lion murmured as he started toward her, steam dancing into the air from the small white mug pinched between several of his fingers.

"Wonderful," replied Dawn. She reached out and took the mug in her hooves, eyes closing as caffeine vapors drifted into her nostrils. The ewe's eyes flashed back open and fixed their pupils on the nervous lion. He was halfway to the door already.

"Did you make copies of those reports?" she smiled as she took a long sip, crossing her legs as she waited for an answer. Lionheart froze and turned around. He averted his gaze, paws anxiously rubbing together.

"Well, uh, no," muttered the lion through his gritted fangs, "I can't." He began to wilt beneath Dawn's merry smile, as if he could see the fiendish grin that hid behind her milky skin and thistle-down wool.

"Oh, you can't?" The ewe chuckled, her short laugh dying in a sweet little sigh, "Why can't you?" Her elbows drifted onto the desk as she let her head rest in her hooves. Her assistant winced and pressed his lips together, squirming in his faded pelt. A simpering gleam sparkled behind Dawn's glasses.

"Because the copier's broken," breathed Lionheart.

"Ooh," huffed Dawn, eyes narrowing as she grimaced and hissed through her teeth, "That's sort of a bummer. I needed them for this afternoon." Trembling tawny paws shot up in the air defensively.

"Y-you'll have them!" the lion stammered "It's being repaired as we speak." He held his breath in fretful stillness as Dawn regarded him, her gaze turning steely behind her cheerful mask.

"Well, that's a relief!" she chirped, the hard flint suddenly gone from her features, "I'm meeting with the city officials today and it's imperative I have them for my presentation." Some of the wryness that lurked beneath her façade slipped out, her soft smile oozing syrupy smugness. "We're expanding the budget for better collar enforcement."

"Oh," said Lionheart, "I had to cancel that one."

Dawn's eyes widened in surprise as her velvety ears fell.

"I'm sorry, what was that?"

The mayor's heart skipped a beat as a smile found its way onto the lion's muzzle. The expression looked outright alien on his perpetually glum face.

"It's canceled, Smellwether."

The ewe's jaw dropped, a muted gasp fleeing out of her flushing face. Her eyes blazed with indignant fury as she stood up on her chair, arms shaking with rage.

"F-fired!" she snarled, "You're fired!" Her hoof slammed down on the pager, "Security! In my office, now!" Dawn froze as brassy laughter filled the room. Her head snapped up to see Lionheart bent over, paws on his knees, every one of his sharp white teeth showing in his open mouth as he laughed. The pale ewe turned paler and shoved her hoof into her pocket. It emerged wrapped around a little black rectangle with a single red button on it. Her assistant's guffawing was winding down as he focused on her, wiping tears from his eyes. Panic exploded in Dawn's stomach. She mashed the red button with her thumb and thrust her arm towards him.

Her pupils shrank in terror as the lion simply erupted into even louder laughter, his voice rising in a crescendo of breathless hilarity. The ewe glanced dumbly back and forth at him and the remote. Her mouth hung open in shock, words dying in her throat before they could be born. Dawn's lungs broke into ragged, shallow breathing. Her quaking hooves began to fumble with the device, the lid to the battery case clattering to her desk.

"Don't bother, Smellwether," Lionheart wheezed. His laughter was beginning to subside, but a jovial grin remained plastered on his face. Dawn's knees went weak. That grin did not belong on Assistant Mayor Lionheart. It belonged on the lion who had once ruled over Zootopia, the one who barked at her through pagers and over phones; the same lion who had given her that cheap, repurposed mug for a gift. The remote dropped like lead from her grasp as Lionheart reached for his neck and undid the collar's unbreakable lock.

"H-how…?" was the only word that Dawn could think to utter. She felt the floor tremor beneath each of the lion's steps as he strode toward her. Her head slowly tilted upwards as he neared, her stare fixed into eyes that had reignited with confidence.

"Two years of Drama in High School," he chuckled, "Had you going there, didn't I?" Dawn cringed as she felt his enormous paw thump her on the back. "We all did, didn't we, guys?" The ewe looked around the towering lion at the doors as they swung open. The security team came strolling in, sheep, pigs and bison laughing as they clustered around Lionheart. Dawn watched in disbelief as each of them shook his paw.

"But…"

"It's called a hustle, sweetheart."

Dawn's heart stopped dead in its tracks as she heard a feminine voice rise over the chattering guards. She saw two long gray ears coming through the crowd toward her desk, accompanied by a fox who leered at her with a casual smirk. The ewe felt her stomach turn, bile boiling its way up to her throat.

"You're dead!" Dawn choked, the blood draining from her face, "I s-saw—"

"Some pretty good acting," Nick finished as he rested his elbow on her desk. Judy peeked over the edge and winked at the trembling sheep.

"Not bad for my first production since grade school," she snorted. Nick shrugged.

"Eh, you milked it a little too hard, but it worked."

Dawn's legs finally gave out as she gawked at the crowd of mammals in her office and she fell back in her chair. Sweat poured from her forehead as Lionheart stepped around the desk, kneeling beside her and clamping his paw over her shoulder. She felt ice burn her spine as he tightened his viselike grip.

"You made a good effort with this whole 'coup' thing, Smellwether," he said, his lips drawing back to show his teeth in the most condescending smile the ewe had ever seen, "In fact, I'm actually impressed. But it was just too big for a little sheep to pull off."

The barbed stingers of words drew Dawn out of her silence.

"I did pull it off!" she blurted, her diminutive body violently jerking in the oversized chair.

"Eh, the whole thing was a little…" Nick paused and weighed his words, "Sloppy, I'm gonna go with sloppy."

"You made a few mistakes here and there," added Judy, "Giving away your whole plan to us comes to mind." The rabbit held up a carrot-shaped pen and pressed a button. Dawn slumped forward as she heard her own voice filtered through an electronic speaker.

 _"And I'll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way."_

"Ooh, that's sort of a bummer," the still-grinning Lionheart chuckled, "You did the best you could. But it's just not a sheep's place to lead." The ewe recoiled as if she'd taken a punch to the gut.

"But I-"

"Look, Smellwether, you're taking that whole 'Anyone can be anything' thing out of context." Dawn let out a breathless squeal as she was suddenly lifted from her chair. Her delicate bones rattled as she was dropped on the desk with a muffled thump. Lionheart took her place, like a king settling into his throne. All the ewe could do was sit on the table and gape with wide wet eyes, her skin prickling under the stares of nearly two dozen mammals. Her brain screamed through tensed nerves to her limbs to run, but all they could manage was a feeble twitch.

"You can be whatever you want to be," said Lionheart as he leaned over the desk to the sheep and clasped his paws, "But it has to line up with what you are. And some mammals, well, just aren't meant to do certain things." He gestured a clawed finger to the security team. "You're never going to see a mouse work security for City Hall, it just doesn't happen."

"I-It will!" Dawn suddenly found her voice and spat venom with it, her soft face burning with hatred, "It will happen! They deserve a chance! All of us do! After I've gotten rid of you—" Her ears flickered as they heard murmurs of laughter rise, swell, and fall. The ewe's fury struggled to remain alight in the midst of all the snide smiles.

"I noticed you didn't hire any," smirked Lionheart, "And even if you did, what would happen? A rhino walks past the mouse; the mouse can't do anything and feels bad. You're setting them up to fail." Dawn felt hot, angry tears welling up in the corner of her eyes as she glowered at the lion, her hooves curling into fists.

"It…I…" Her voice grated through her clenched throat and died mid-breath.

"See, this is what I was talking about, Smellwether," Lionheart sighed, "It takes a certain kind of mammal to lead. Sheep just aren't good leaders. They never have been." His winning smile struck Dawn's pained scowl head on. "But you can do anything when you're being told what to do. You're fantastic followers."

The ewe's heart, caked with bitterness and slathered in loathing, began to break.

"I… _am_ a good leader," she muttered.

"Debatable," snorted Nick.

"Maybe not the right kind of leader for Zootopia," said Judy.

"A good leader wouldn't have let their plan fall apart this badly," beamed Lionheart. The big cat's eyes lit up as they glanced to the room's entrance, running a paw through his mane. "Oh good, they're here."

Dawn tore her eyes away from Lionheart as the doors suddenly flew open, her tear-streaked face whipping over her shoulder to see a stampede of yammering animals pour inside. A thousand questions were fired into the air, microphones held in hooves and paws listening for answers. A swarm of cameras trained their mechanical eyes on Dawn and winked their shutters with beetle-like clicks. She lifted an arm to shield herself from the white-hot explosions of camera bulbs that left floating black voids in her vision. More tears seeped out of her reddening eyes as she shrank back, trying to drag herself from view. Each burst of searing light hungrily captured a different angle of a wretched little ewe surrounded by grinning faces, alone on a desk like a forsaken doll.

The noose of reporters grew tighter around the desk, voices climbing on top of each other to reach the ears of Lionheart, entombing Dawn in a circle of frenzied jaws that seemed to flap noiselessly in the overbearing chorus of voices; of wild eyes that pierced the air searching for answers. The ewe shivered miserably, her ears roaring as her heart toiled away in her chest pumping ice-water blood through every vein and capillary.

"Mr. Lionheart, is it true Dawn Bellwether is behind the predators going savage?"

"Did she frame you the wrongful imprisonment of the missing predators?"

"Are you going to press charges?"

Lionheart's champion smile spread across his muzzle as he straightened his tie.

"Well, did she commit several offenses?" he said into one of the microphones, "Yes, yes she did." Dawn nearly screamed as she felt the lion's leaden paw come down on her shoulder and turn her around to face the audience. Tears dribbled down her cheeks as he pushed her forward into the storm of photographic lightning and thundering voices. Eyes gaped at her through cameras; mouths squawked into phones, pens and pencils scratched her name in dog-eared notebooks.

"Miss Bellwether, is it true that you poisoned Zootopian citizens?"

"Who else is in on it, Miss Bellwether? How far does the corruption go?"

"Why predators? Are you speciest, Miss Bellwether?"

"Bellwether."

"Bellwether!"

"BELLWETHER!"

The word was repeated by every tongue in a lolling chant that traveled in a wave across the spinning room. Dawn's whole body heaved with her straining lungs, sucking in air over her teeth that was tainted by the breath of every mammal that crammed itself toward her. Her frantic eyes darted about blindly in their sockets, ears twitching with every utterance of her name. Her jaw opened, but her tongue sagged and went limp in her mouth. All she could manage was a sickly little wheeze, its pitch rising and falling in time with her breathing. The ewe's heart raced wildly now, as if at any moment it might burst out of her chest and scatter her tiny ribs all over the desk.

The glint of mirror-bright metal caught her eye. A pair of hooked steel talons was moving toward her, held in the hooves of a towering water buffalo. He sifted through the crowd, a battleship in leathery gray hide and navy blue cloth. A fleet of police-mammals followed in his wake, breaking through the tightly woven circle of reporters. Dawn's tear-soaked pupils shrank as the gleam of the handcuffs came closer. A hoarse scream barreled out of her mouth as sinewy paws, black hooves, needle-sharp claws reached out and grabbed at her. They tore wool from raw red skin, ripped ribbons out of her dress, yanked cruelly at her spindly limbs to pull her into the cuffs, but Lionheart's grip remained steadfast.

"Ah, hold on a second, officers," Lionheart smiled, "That won't be necessary." The leathery pads of his hand dug into her shoulder as he lifted her above the clawing limbs, her legs dangling limply as he flaunted her toward the crowd. "As acting mayor of Zootopia, I hereby pardon and forgive Dawn Bellwether of all crimes she committed, and reinstate her as assistant mayor!" Tiny razor shards of ice embedded themselves deep in the ewe's chest. The mob's sudden gusto of voices became the distant droning of a far off beehive as her eyes glazed with mortification. The heat of their frantic bodies turned the air thick with nauseous humidity, soaking into her wool and making her skin wet and throat dry.

Dawn winced as Lionheart began moving away from his desk, animals squirming and writhing away to form a path to a little gray door. Written in black marker on a sheet of paper hung crookedly with masking tape were words she never wanted to see again: Office of the Assistant Mayor.

"No…" she gagged, "No…"

"Oh, don't be so modest," Lionheart chuckled, "You may not be mayor material, but you're the best assistant mayor a mammal could ask for." Dawn's jaw dropped as she heard the handle turn and the jamb click, the door swinging wide open to show a dark room lit only by the faint blue glow of a computer screen. The smell of old floor soap and crisp stationary filled Dawn's nostrils as the lion dropped her onto a rough concrete floor, dust drifting up over her hooves. She stared up at him, tears turning to crystals in the light that poured in from around his silhouette.

"No, please-"

"I've got to go talk to the press; could you file that Herds and Grazing report for me? Thanks." A gust of air knocked the ewe off her feet as the great door slammed shut. A low murmuring came from all around her. Dawn glanced up, eyes turning to saucers. All four walls were hidden behind towering columns of paper that rose to a limitless ceiling, swaying on stacks of white cardboard boxes stamped with faded ink. The murmur rose to a groan as the room began to quake. The dark ceiling turned white as papers fluttered down like oversized snowflakes. Dawn scrambled up, hooves awkwardly scraping against the floor as she jumped at the door and grasped the handle. She yanked and twisted, wildly sobbing as her scrawny body thrashed every which way. But the cold steel refused to budge.

The ewe whirled around as she became aware of a rustling. The cement floor was gone, replaced by a carpet of white paper and black ink. She dared to look up as one of the rectangular towers began to topple like a tree, colliding with its neighbor in an explosion of printed pages. The gentle snowfall became a blizzard. Dictionary-thick chunks slammed like stone slabs onto the floor leaving bustling trails of white behind them. Dawn squealed and hopped clumsily to avoid them as pages circled her body, sliding off wool and clothing. Blue binders tumbled down to spill memos and reports as they fell. Boxes labeled with ancient dates fell from shelves high in orbit and burst like bombs, scattering manila folders everywhere. Post-it notes scribbled with reminders spiraled to the rest among the growing mess like autumn leaves.

The ewe screamed, but in the deafening chaos she wasn't able to hear herself. The blizzard erupted into an avalanche, the towers giving way and collapsing in on themselves. Paper tipped from the walls to become an enormous heap on the floor, rising from Dawn's ankles to her hips. She stumbled forward, unable to see where she was going through the downpour. The eye-blazing whiteness began to fade to black as the growing mess rose past her chest and head, entrapping her with thousands of printed words. Her screams became primal bleats as she was buried, her voice drowned out by the muffled drumming above her. More weight came; papers, boxes, folders, binders, until pain sprung out of her bones as they cracked wide open, until her wool was crushed to felt, until her last breath was pressed from her lungs—until she opened her eyes.

* * *

Former Mayor Dawn Bellwether's reeling head shot off her pillow as she sat up on her cot and gasped for air, rivers of sweat pouring down her terror-stricken face. Her shoulders rose and fell as she sucked musty prison air into her body, her trembling hooves locked around the edges of her tattered blanket. The ewe's winded panting echoed out in her tiny cell, bouncing back from cement and stone into her ears to tell her where she was. The panicked fireworks in her eyes began to fizzle out as her pupils spread over her irises in the dark, blurry shadows becoming familiar shapes. Dawn licked her dry lips with a dryer tongue and felt her fluttering heart begin to slow. The ewe dared to lie down again, putting her back to the wall. She stared at the concrete blocks of her cell for the millionth time. For the millionth time, they peered back with the same icy stillness that had greeted her with on her very first night locked away behind bars.

Dawn clenched her teeth. Exhaustion worked its way over her body as the adrenaline ebbed away and left her with aching eyes. But she held them open, knowing full well that if she closed them she'd be thrust back into that terrible dream; pulled through all the fear, pain, and humiliation all over again like she had almost every night since her incarceration. She shuddered beneath her blanket. Even with her fleece, and even with the ratty orange jumpsuit, the constant cold of her cell always pierced right through and crept into her bones until they frosted over.

Dawn sat up on her cot and wrapped the threadbare blanket around her trembling body. The corridor floor glowed silver with moonbeams that projected the bars of her cell against the walls. Noises that were faint by day were deafening now; the growling snores of the two dozen species that made up the cellblock. By now the ewe could almost decipher every individual sound. The buzz-saw droning was Petunia the tigress; the nasally woodwind whistling came from Henrietta the antelope; the chattering whining was that of Mina the hyena. These were only a few of the voices she'd learned to recognize and fear. Dawn curled up tighter in her blanket. Her rock-crystal green eyes silently began to moisten.

Come morning she'd have to face each and every one of them. Cower under the glares of thousands of eyes; stare up into the hateful sneers full of crescent fangs and tombstone incisors of mammals that could crush her under their heels. She'd been sent to the infirmary her first day, and many more times in the days that followed. Her wool now grew over old scars and reoccurring bruises. Day in and day out she was terrorized by animals several times her size, just like before, but now far worse than she ever could have imagined. Half a year ago she was merely a nobody; just a glorified but nameless secretary for Lionheart to step over. Now she was the Infamous Dawn Bellwether, mastermind of the Night-Howler Crisis and ringleader of the vilest conspiracy in Zootopian history.

The ewe's soft sobs dissipated into the night noise as she shivered into her blanket. It was a death shroud, and the frigid icebox cell was her tomb. She'd been murdered that day in the museum, all her hopes and dreams crushed beneath the weight of that single sentence recorded on the rabbit's pen.

" _And I'll dart every predator in Zootopia to keep it that way."_

That one piece of evidence was all that was needed to end the life of Dawn Bellwether.

It was when the jury reached their verdict, when the judge had sentenced her, when the gavel rang for the final time she realized she was dead. She'd been impeached within hours of the story reaching the public. Doug, Walter, and the rest of the cabal had abandoned her and sought plea deals to save themselves. The city that had welcomed her into office after Lionheart's arrest turned on her. She spent countless hours squirming before a courtroom full of mammals that wanted her blood, the only voice in her favor coming from a lawyer that would have gladly acted as prosecutor. They'd thrown the book at her, burying her under charge after charge until there was no chance for parole; until she was walled up for good in a prison crammed with the most violent, vicious criminals Zootopia had to offer.

A mournful sigh seeped out of Dawn's mouth and vanished as misty vapor into the midnight darkness. Sleep tugged sharply at the corner of her eyes. Her body ached to lie down and let it overtake her, but she knew she'd get no rest. She'd wake up again, maybe screaming this time, in a few short minutes. The ewe's face screwed up, eyes slamming shut and squeezing out tears as she pulled the blanket tight around her shoulders. She could feel herself losing the battle. Her spent muscles gave out and she toppled over onto her cot, sending up a cloud of concrete dust. Her body a lost cause, the ewe turned to her mind, delving deep for thoughts to hold on to. She had to find something, anything that she could hold on to, to keep her from falling back into a troubled slumber. But all she found were the base materials of her nightmares; the bad memories the, broken dreams, the crippling fears.

There was something else. Something that invaded her thoughts from the outside, creeping in through her ears to beat against her eardrums and send shockwaves through the fretful silence of her skull. A faint sound from across her cell, muffled by cement and mortar, was scurrying its way along the joints and blocks. A hollow groan reverberated somewhere; something shook and rattled against cold concrete while fluids gurgled through pipes like murky blood in rust-speckled veins. Dawn opened her eyes as a stream splattered to life and rang against the freezing steel of her sink. Cloudy water sprayed from the faucet in a faltering jet, weighting the air with the bitter scent of iron and chlorine. The ewe slowly blinked as she shakily rose from her bed and donned her glasses, suddenly wincing as the drain erupted in a geyser. Her eyes flickered to the lavatory as the plumbing belched in a hollow retch, face wrinkling in disgust as water began to seep over the bowl's edges.

Dawn turned as a python's hiss rose from the corridor, growing louder with each passing second. Her ears drooped as she saw the moon's silver light begin to quiver as it fell on mirror-slick water that seeped out from between the bars of a hundred cells. The confused cries of unseen animals filled the hall as they stirred from their sleep, roused by the smack of water against cement. Artificial raindrops suddenly poured down from the ceiling as the fire sprinklers burst open one by one and peppered the surface of the growing flood with tiny divots. Dawn felt her hooves grasp her shoulders as she kicked her legs and shoved her into the corner of her bed, scrunching herself down into a child. Howls and roars echoed out of the darkness while paws and hooves stumbled through the rising waters. Eyes flickered and flashed green and red from behind bars, hovering through shadows as their owners frantically paced within their cells.

Sparks lit up the night as the cell doors shot along their rails to slam against the wall. An alarm let out a distorted drone that died in a squeal of feedback. Dawn felt her mouth drop open as delighted shrieks rose over the chaos. Ragged shapes crowded into the corridor and left foaming wakes in the rising water that became rolling waves that slapped against concrete walls. The little ewe cringed as the dark shapes snarled at one another, shoving past to get at an exit that might not even be open. A bleat suddenly rocketed out of her throat as columns of water spewed themselves up toward the corridor ceiling from the overworked drains in the floor, the rusted grates plummeting back into the water with muffled splashes. The animals' screams rose again in furious swears as they fought their way through the roaring jets. All were now scrambling toward the door that led to freedom, and Dawn could hear the wild gurgling of water overtaking their voices. Fewer and fewer shapes could be seen wrestling the flood.

An icy chill suddenly shot up the ewe's leg. She glanced down to see the inky water rising over her cot and lapping against her hoof. Dawn squealed and stood up on the mattress, her teeth clenched in a mortified grimace as the cot was overtaken by the flood, oozing over frayed prison sheets to submerge her hooves. The ewe put her hands to her mouth and bit her whitening knuckles while she stared at the creases and ripples that danced over the rising water, moonlight shimmering over its liquid obsidian surface. Irrational thoughts swirled loose from the back of her mind and whispered to her of dangers that slithered beneath every lolling wave in wait for her. The ewe thrashed her head from side to side to throw her fear before it took root in her brain. She stepped off of the mattress and dropped waist deep into the water, a gasp escaping her chattering teeth as the frigid waters pierced her skin with a million needles.

Dawn began wading as quickly as her spindly legs could manage, raising her arms over her head against the sprinklers as she stepped out into the corridor. Droplets flecked her face like dew and clung to her glasses until everything became blurry shapes. She could feel the water slowly creeping up her body, permeating her canvas jumpsuit and soaking into her fleece. Her miserable whimper was lost in the deafening spray as she slogged onward, squinting through the beads of water that stuck to her lashes as she searched for something to guide her through the chaos. The ewe's aching muscles burned beneath her freezing skin with the weight of her waterlogged wool as she struggled through the flood. Spindly limbs beat at the water in panicked splashes as the water began to overtake her height. She kicked and flailed to keep her head above the surface, eyes nearly feral with terror behind her speckled glasses.

Dawn felt a tremor shake the water and pass through her bones as something far below the prison groaned and gave way. All at once the geysers in the corridor were extinguished; the last of the torrents dying away in plumes of white foam on the water's surface. The storm of sprinklers overhead petered out to a measly dribble. For a brief moment all Dawn could hear was her own splashing and sputtering echoing out through the deserted hall as she floated among debris washed out the open cells. Ruined books drifted by with purple-black ink running from disintegrating pulp pages, soggy blankets bobbed aimlessly along like clumps of pale seaweed.

The floundering ewe let out a half-fulfilled squawk as a half-submerged laundry bag bumped into her shoulder, head jerking left and right as she suddenly vanished beneath the water. Air escaped her lungs as fizzing bubbles as she clawed her way back to the surface. Her glasses were streaked with rivulets as she broke through and spewed metallic swill from her throat. Through her clouded vision she saw the odd bits of flotsam were sailing towards her, picking up speed the nearer they came. Dawn's eyes shrunk to pinpricks as she felt something tug at her legs, dragging her back the way she'd come. The ewe spun about in the water as a hollow gurgle sounded off from the depths, a circular maw lined with swirling ripples forming on the water not six feet away.

Dawn's whole body exploded into frenzied movement, hurling her limbs in circles to tear herself free from the ravenous current. Her face went taut, her eyes and grimace blazing with horror as she made the water around her boil with her mad paddling. The ewe's mouth gaped open in a pitiful gag, the only sound she could force from her burning lungs. Hot tears intermingled with icy water as she began to circle the whirlpool, the room becoming a nauseating blur of pale concrete and dark iron. The drain howled from the bottom of the funnel as it greedily fed; the last thing Dawn heard before she was sucked beneath the surface.


	2. Overlord of the Underground

Pain. That was the first thing that rose from the dark abyss to drag Dawn from a dreamless sleep. It pulsed through the nerves of her battered body into her foggy brain, igniting a spark that lit a petering candle of consciousness. Aches gnawed at her bones, bruises spread like silent wildfires under her skin. Every joint was sore, rusted stiff from a long, awkward, uncomfortable rest slumped over something gnarled and coated in slime. The ewe made no movements, but could feel herself move, bobbing up and down weightlessly while minuscule waves gently lapped against her waist. Her nostrils burned from funneling water out of her sinuses, and with every shallow breath they took in dank, stagnant cave air. An ear twitched as a drop of water fell from somewhere high above and landed in a vast dark lake, echoing out against damp stone.

Dawn's sleep-encrusted lids slowly parted to let her bleary green eyes take in the world. Black midnight shadows greeted her with only the faintest of light to separate them from total darkness. The bottom of her tortoiseshell glasses hung down in her line of sight. They'd somehow endured the flood, half tangled in the wet coif of wool upon her head. The ewe's joints popped as she lifted an arm from the water to straighten them. She peered through the smudged lenses and squinted into the gloom.

Dawn saw now that she was slung over a water-worn log, drifting through a tunnel of concrete and stone, the walls streaked with lime and calcium deposits. Small stalactites hung from the snaking masses of rusting pipes overhead, cobwebs strung crooked between valves and handles. Refuse bobbed alongside her in the inky water; mats of decaying leaves, deteriorating papers washed of their words, plastic bags stretched flat on the oily surface of the water. Aluminum cans glinted dully in the elusive light source, which Dawn could now see came from far ahead. A dim yellow glow crept in from beyond the mouth of the tunnel. She clutched at her log with her tired arms, shivering beneath her waterlogged wool. A current lazily pulled her along toward the archway of the tunnel to where the ewe hoped she might find a way out of the water.

The water became strangely warm as Dawn passed through the tunnel's mouth. Eerie light poured out of a sparse collection of rusted light fixtures that dangled from a cavernous ceiling of rust-encased plumbing and block upon block of elephant-skinned stone to show a vast reservoir of greasy black water fed by a twisted network of drains and tunnels. Litter from decades past drifted about over the lake, collecting on two shadow-shrouded shores made of dirty gray brick on either side of the great lake. The embankment to her left rose to become a platform crowded with snarled piles of larger refuse, and branched out into other rooms through towering arched doorways. A glimmer of hope passed through the ewe's eyes, and she meekly kicked with her limp spindles of legs, resting her upper half on the log. Each splash of her hooves rang out through the cavern, slapping wetly against the slime-covered walls to rebound and echo out over the inky pool.

Somewhere in the gloom something splashed in reply.

Dawn froze; a good thirty feet between her and the embankment. Her chest became tight as she saw ripples rushing past her that had come rolling from the other side of the lake. The tips of the ewe's hoofed fingers sunk like tiny spades into the rotting wood of her log. Stale grotto air ran over her tongue as she sucked in a breath, arms shaking as her heart began to race. The safety of the brick platform seemed miles off.

Dawn looked over her shoulder to the dark corners of the cavern.

Thousands of red eyes glowed on the surface of the Stygian water; a whole universe of stars burning on the backdrop of a clear night sky. They sailed in the sockets of long, terrible skulls sheathed in leathery skin and armed with deadly white cones for teeth. Huge humps covered in thick plates of scaly armor drifted behind them, speckled with swampy greens, midnight blacks, and rusty browns. They seemed to float aimlessly, gliding over the oil-slick surface of the reservoir with the merest twitch of powerful tails scalloped with fin-like spikes. The creatures leered hungrily at the ewe as they skulked in total silence, inching out from the desolate nooks of the cavern, peeking with fiery glass marble eyes from snaking tunnels. Winter filled Dawn's body as she stared with dinner plate eyes, freezing every vein and muscle solid. The cold was tempered by a scalding terror that knifed her stomach and thrust itself upward to touch her stopped heart. It built pressure against her breathless lungs as if it might force a scream out of her parched throat, or burst trying.

Something quietly began to rise out of the water a mere foot away from her.

The scream broke free and echoed again and again through all the sewers of Zootopia as an enormous saurian head oozed to the surface, water parting and running over olive green pea-gravel scales back into the lake. All the ewe could do was float and gawk in mortified awe at the creature's sheer size. It grinned at her with an enormous mouth lined with ivory daggers as transparent membranes flicked forward and uncovered algae colored eyes; the two slit pupils dilating as they fixed themselves upon her. Dawn felt a fine mist fleck her face as the nostrils flexed and exhaled noxious steam, sending droplets out over the water. The jaws began to open up into a cavern of cadaverous grayish-pink flesh, the teeth becoming jagged rock formations.

"Well, well, well, what have we here?"

Dawn's jaw dropped as she heard a deep, dulcet voice echo out of a throat lined with the cold, stony walls of a bottomless well.

Reptiles couldn't talk. When mammals had cast off the yolk of savagery and began to think, reason, and build, their scaly foes were still crawling through the primordial ooze; still preying upon one another as they always had. And yet this thing, this creature that had remained unchanged for millions of years, whose gaping jaws still lurked in the subconscious fears of mammals since time immemorial, had spoken to her. She could see now that its eyes weren't the glassy, feral eyes of a dumb beast—they twinkled bright in the dark with thoughts and emotions produced by a brain as sly and cunning as the ewe's own.

Dawn became aware her mouth was moving, letting pitiful whimpering sounds that were trying to be words flutter like idiot moths into the musty air. The creature's smile grew wider as it let out an amused chuckle, the water fizzing around its mouth.

"Why, it's an itty, bitty, little lamb," its voice rumbled from deep inside its chest, "Well, what brings ya all the way down here?" The reptile began to inch forward, the rest of his titanic body rising from the depths. A wall of gravelly scales slithered around the ewe, her log bobbing gently on malicious ripples generated by a tail sheathed in segmented leather plating. She felt the monster's eyes picking her apart as it circled her, taking in the terror plastered to her face, examining the way she floated in the water, sizing up her shivering skeleton and carefully measuring every ounce of flesh that clung to it.

"Hold the phone…"

Dawn's stomach churned bile to a sickly froth as the great beast came to a stop, the waves sloshing the fluids of her innards as she struggled to keep a steady eye on the creature. It presented its head to her again, the tip of its wrinkled snout brushing inches away from her muzzle. Its narrowed gaze suddenly widened, and the ewe saw a devious flash in its pupils; a snapshot of some secret thought to be stored and hidden away for later.

"Dawn Bellwether!" it howled, water dancing over the huge field of scutes that plated its back as it chortled heartily, "Well, this is a surprise, ain't it, folks?" A sheet of greasy water smacked the ewe's face as the creature swung its gigantic skull around to face the others. They stared back blankly, a few of them vanishing beneath the surface. Dawn cringed as the reptile turned back to her with its crooked grin, its tail lashing thoughtfully behind it to send whitecapped waves crashing into the walls.

The ewe quaked breathless in the water and blanched at the beast. Her name had passed through the lipless maw of the leviathan. She could hear the recognition in its voice; read it in the subtle shifting of its smile. If it knew who she was, it had to also know what she had done, and what she had planned to do. Dawn felt her heart drop into her boiling stomach.

"Seems it's my lucky day," the creature said, its rancid breath flecking her glasses with spittle, "Or rather, _our_ lucky day." Dawn barely had time to blink before it lunged forward and rammed its snout into her log, pushing her toward the embankment. She cried out as her back collided with solid rock, the log slipping out of her grasp and teetering away on her wake. The ewe squealed and thrashed blindly until her hooves clamped onto the layers of swamp-scented slime caked over dark masonry, chest heaving as she scrambled to pull herself up. Her toes at last slipped into a foothold, and the ewe hurled her body onto trash-strewn brick, her water-soaked wool squelching like a damp sponge beneath her jumpsuit. Dawn lay still and panted as the water leaked into the mortar joints in the floor, running out to dribble back into the lake.

She turned her head as an avalanche of garbage tumbled to the floor nearby, spent soda cans and emptied bottles clunking and ringing down the mounds of shifting trash. Her eyes stretched open in horror as she saw the creature slithering out of the water. Droplets flecked from the lopsided coif of wool on her head as she weakly pushed herself up and crawled backwards, unable to pry her gaze from the beast. Scaly clawed feet slapped against the stone as they hauled a long, serpentine body from the water. The ewe curled up smaller open as more and more of the seemingly endless creature rose from the pool, plowing through the piles of refuse like a dragon through its hoard. Her heart jumped as the reptile slowly began to rise from the ground like a serpent, a deep rattling growl sounding off in its chest as the top of its head grew closer to the ceiling. Its powerful legs bowed as they supported its bulk, its tail swaying in the water behind it.

The world grew dark as a behemoth shadow eclipsed the flickering lights. Dawn found herself staring up into the face of a monstrous crocodile; a towering prehistoric giant so huge it rivaled an elephant in height. A claw shot out to snatch a dirty bundle of cloth hung on the wall. There was a snap of fabric and dust as he shook it out and slipped it over his shoulders, sliding his arms into sleeves stitched with twine. It was something like an enormous trench coat patched together with scraps of grimy tarp, with two wing-like coattails to allow his tail to trail behind. Loose garbage trembled on the floor as he began to swagger toward the sheep; the pale scutes of his underside showing like a wall of dirty marble blocks.

Several times Dawn tried to speak, but her thoughts were consumed by the sight of the gargantuan jaws grinning far above her head; about how easily they could shatter bone and rend flesh into paste. At last she found her voice cowering and curled deep in a dark little nook of her mind. She forced it out into the world in a hoarse croak.

"What are you going to do to me?!" A dented can of bolts spilled over her shoulder as she tried forcing herself even further back, the whole scrap pile resettling itself with a clatter that pierced the eerie stillness of the cavern.

"Oh, don't worry, Ms. Bellwether, I got no intention of doin' ya any harm. You're a guest in my humble abode. And 'sides," he chimed, "Ya should be askin' me what I can do _for_ you." His double rows of ivory spikes parted in a laugh as he looked down into the dumbfounded stare on the ewe's face. Dawn swallowed the sticky lump of terror in her throat and breathed in sewer damp with raspy lungs.

"…Who are you?"

The crocodile flashed a thousand teeth in his smile and bowed his spine to thrust a gigantic leathery claw at the ewe. She nearly screamed as she felt the rough fingers close over her hoof, her arm flopping limply as he gave it a vigorous shake.

"Oh, of course. Where's my manners? 'Round here I'm known as 'Crocodile King' or 'Overlord of the Underground', or 'Sultan of the Sewers', though I 'spose those are more whats. As for the who," his free hand drummed its digits against his chest, "Call me Stubbs." Disgusted tremors corkscrewed up and down Dawn's body as she yanked her hand out of the reptile's clammy grasp and scraped it across the floor with a shudder. Something slithered behind her back as the crocodile returned to his full height and prompted a mortified squeal from the ewe. A tail crested with scalloped scales drew itself tight around her middle and squeezed water from her wool. Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she was lifted clear from the ground and brought close toward Stubbs' saurian smile.

"Don't eat me!" Dawn's wail became a panicked bleat as she squirmed in the crocodile's tail, thrashing her limbs and clawing at his snout. Her tiny balled fists thudded dully against wet, stony skin and the bedrock skull beneath it. The wildfire fear in her veins slowly burnt itself out as she saw the puckish gleam in the reptile's eyes, her arms falling lifeless at her side. The great jaws opened in a guffaw and unleashed a cloud of rotten air into the ewe's face, her eyes watering as the sickening scent of decay filled her wrinkling nostrils.

"Already said I wasn't going to. C'mon, Ms. Bellwether, put aside your prejudices and hear me out." His laughter died down into a coy giggle that sieved its way through his teeth as he turned away. Dawn's line of vision lurched violently as the crocodile broke into a lumbering gait, his viperous tail swaying behind him as his colossus of a body tilted from side to side. Tremors shook their way up his pitted scales and rattled the ewe's bones every time his lizard-clawed feet stomped against the brick floor. She hung limp as a rag doll in the as he carried her over the litter of thousands of streets, toppling stacks of damp, melting newspapers that spanned decades, slogging through piles of tangled and rotting twine, scattering buckets of bolts rusted to a powdery orange.

"You're the first mammal to make it down here," sang Stubbs, his smooth voice ringing off ancient masonry to lurk in dark forgotten corners, "'Here' bein' Reptopia; my own little kingdom beneath your city." Dawn gritted her teeth as she was swung towards a wall, peering through her dirty glasses at a metal sign hung crooked on the bricks. It was an old road sign that had once greeted travelers into the city; 'Welcome to Zootopia'. The blue paint had chipped and peeled away at the edges as rust ate it away, but the white lettering was untouched save for three red letters scrawled over 'Zoo'.

"I know; it ain't much," continued the crocodile as he strode deeper into the chamber, "'Specially when ya compare it to what ya got on the surface. But I think you'll find it's got all it needs." Mold spores and mortar dust breezed over the ewe as once more she was swung through the air to face a collection of grotesquely aged machines that shuddered in their scratched and dented casings. They hungrily sucked power from thick cables that snaked from jagged holes in the wall and hummed with purloined electricity. The ewe was yanked onward before she could even guess their purpose.

"I make do with what I can get my hands on," purred Stubbs as he tugged the lapels of his billowing coat with pride, "And I can get my hands on _a lot_." Another twist of his tail sent Dawn lurching to the left and knocked her glasses askew. She hastily straightened them to see a crude shelf lined with radio guts and clock innards; primitive but lasting electrical components laid out in cluttered rows among half-finished projects and secondhand tools. But it was what lay beneath them that made the ewe gawk. Mud-caked broaches glittered beside golden wire wrought into necklace chain and rings studded with dusty jewels in metal bins on the floor, sharing their space with tarnished coins and crumpled, bleached bills worn down to fibers.

Dawn's gaze was torn away from the derelict treasures as the crocodile's tail suddenly opened. She landed with a plunk onto a makeshift table, sending vibrations over oxidized sheet metal to rattle loose junk scattered across its surface. Quick as lightning she rolled over and sat up, wincing as a dozen aches and pains cried out all over her body. Stubbs loomed before her with his great green oil lamps of eyes glowing with thought in the dim lighting.

"But clever as I am, for well, a crocodile, I find I'm lackin' in certain…" he twiddled a claw through the air, "We'll just say 'knowledge' that I need to complete my goals." A chill passed over Dawn as she pondered his words, and that dreaded feeling of helplessness that had been growing in her gut since she awoke reached a terrifying peak.

"Goals?" Her voice quivered as it echoed the word on dry lips.

"Exactly," answered Stubbs with a crisp snap of his jaws, "'Matter of fact, they ain't that different from yours." A cryptic smirk crept over his craggy precipice of a snout as he watched confusion bloom on the ewe's face. "Ya wanted to make the world a better place for little guys like yourself, didn't ya?"

Something twisted itself into infinite knots in the pit of Dawn's stomach as memories of better times flittered across her glistening eyes.

"I-I did," she murmured, "But what does that have to do with your, uh…goals?" She clenched her teeth at the way Stubbs' eyes lit up.

"Well, I want the same for my subjects," he answered, "These poor, unfortunate souls are trapped beneath a city that abandoned them." He pointed his snout to the dark lake beyond the hills of garbage where the red eyes still shone. "Pets, Ms. Bellwether," he added, "Pets and decorations that outgrew their welcome, and then flushed down the drains." Dawn tensed at the somber steel that had slipped beneath the velvet of the crocodile's voice, clutching at her jumpsuit as his dark slits flickered in her direction. "They didn't ask to be brought here. So I think we're owed a little somethin' for our troubles." The ewe sat quietly while cold metal bit at her legs. The seconds ticked by as Stubbs drummed his claws on the table, ensnaring the ex-politician with a wry glint in his gaze. Dawn felt her fingers close around her shoulders.

"…What do you want?" A shudder shook her spine as the reptile's beastly grin laced itself along his jaws with deadly civility.

"A place on the surface for all my crocodilian comrades," he replied, the jovial tilt returning to his tone. "Somewhere we can set up our own little district. 'Reptopia II', if you will." Dawn searched his leathery features, and in spite of how playfully they glowed she could find no hint he was joking.

"That's a very nice idea," she peeped, "But I don't think, ah, I could, well…help." She flinched as the crocodile suddenly leaned across the table and prodded her temple with a gnarled digit.

"On the contrary," he sang, "What I need is right there in your big, beautiful brain." His jaws lurched closer to the panicked ewe, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but as assistant Mayor I'm willin' to bet all legislation went through you, right?"

"Th-that's true," gulped Dawn, "But-"

"And I 'spose you went through all the paperwork for city planin' and infrastructure?"

"Well, yes, but that's-"

"Which would include recent updates to sewers, subways, and those wonderful climate-maintainers all across the city?" The crocodile's foul breath fogged the ewe's glasses, but through the rancid steam she could see his teeth just about to touch the lenses.

"…Y-yes." Her heart jumped as the reptile suddenly drew back and clucked in the back of his throat.

"Then," he purred, "We're in business. That is, if you're willin' to help me."

Dawn quietly stared at the creature and choked on the sickly glob of fear she couldn't swallow.

"And…if I'm not?"

"Then ya don't have to," shrugged Stubbs, his fingers intertwining themselves behind his back as he turned and gravely marched back into the shadows, "I'll take ya to the surface and that'll be the end of it." The ewe's eyes welled with skepticism as she watched his tail swish and creep over the floor. "I know what it's like to be forced into somethin', Ms. Bellwether, and I know ya do as well, and I'd never, _ever_ wanna do that to ya." A sigh wheezed out from powerful lungs to shake dust from stone and loosen dirt caked in mortared joints. "But, that bein' said, I think it'd be a mistake."

Dawn's nose twitched as she peered at the half-hidden giant. Anxiety conjured up twisted spiders to scuttle about inside her body and scratch and jab at her ribs with needle-sharp legs. She wanted to leave now more than she ever wanted anything in her life. And yet the reptile's last sentence had rooted her to the spot; hinted at some terrible secret he was hiding from her.

"Why?"

The crocodile's silhouette shifted its head over its shoulder to look back at her.

"Because, Ms. Bellwether," he murmured, "There's nothin' to go back to." A fine layer of silt was ground between brick and leathery soles as the he pivoted around. "Where ya gonna go? Back to prison? Or ya gonna try your luck on the road, always runnin' to the next town and _hope_ the law don't catch up with ya?" An uneasy tightness seized the ewe's chest with icy claws and forced her spine rigid, her gaze locked ahead as the dull green pebbles of the creature's snout ventured out of the darkness. There hadn't been time to consider her next move since she'd awoken. But Stubbs had brought up a point she'd eventually arrive at. The police would be on high alert for Zootopia's greatest criminal, and would hunt her down until she was caught or dead. There was nowhere she could hide, no one who would hide her. Dawn slumped and shrank into herself as a horrific realization sank into her brain.

The police wouldn't be the only ones after her.

The very thought chilled her to the bone. In prison there had been guards to keep mammals from ripping her apart. There wouldn't be any on dark street corners, in back allies, or anywhere else she could think to hide. She was no safer in the city than she was among the cold-blooded beasts that skulked beneath it.

"I don't know…" Her shoulders heaved with an icy shudder.

"I might." The crocodile slithered further into the light. "Ms. Bellwether, I gotta stress again, I won't make ya do anythin' ya don't want to." His smile shone as brightly as his eyes. "On the contrary, I'll help ya with anythin' ya need or want." Dawn looked up at the reptile as he drifted through the stagnant air towards her, tiny granules of dirt crunching beneath his webbed feet. Her face became a jumbled mess of anxiety and cynicism.

"But why would you after I…"

The words spilled out past her teeth before she even realized she'd spoken. She clapped a hoof to her mouth as if she could still stop them, eyes stretched wide and brimming with mortified regret. But Stubbs' smile never faltered.

"Oh, that?" he chuckled, "Don't worry 'bout it. Fact is, that's the reason I know I can trust ya." Another laugh wormed its way out of his throat as he looked down at the confusion on the ewe's face. "That whole thing showed me ya were different; different from all the other mammals in the city. Ya saw what they couldn't. Ya knew things weren't fair, and tried to change 'em. But they didn't understand, did they?"

Dawn gingerly raised her hoof to touch where a cloven hoof had struck the back of her head a day before; by another sheep, no less.

"Well, no, I can't say they did," she chuffed.

"That's gratitude for ya," continued the crocodile, his scaly palms slapping down on the table, "Can't say I'm surprised. But what really gets me is how easy everyone else got off. That bunny got her job back after blowin' up that subway car on public property; that con artist fox got off for his scams…They even put Lionheart back in after all he did."

Bitter embers ignited and began thawing the fearful frost around Dawn's heart. Her tiny hooves seized up into fists as she looked away. Ever the politician, Lionheart had been able to turn his situation around almost immediately after she'd been caught. Locking away the savage predators had suddenly become _her_ idea. It was Dawn's idea, he'd told the press, to keep the crisis a secret. His testimony had been used against her in court, and everyone had bought it. There was some truth to it, and in a twisted way he'd finally given her credit for something. She'd subtly left documents about Cliffside on his desk after the first attacks began and kept innocently mentioning issues with his public image to make him afraid. He'd perfectly fallen into her trap, but with the meddling of Judy and that crook of a fox he'd weaseled out of it. The same night Lionheart was celebrating his reinstatement, she'd been laid up in the prison's infirmary with a broken arm.

"I'm aware," the ewe mumbled.

"Is there anythin' you'd like to do about it?"

She looked back to the crocodile, who grinned broadly as his tail swayed and cast serpentine shadows on the wall. A familiar dark curiosity rose from the back of her mind and wrestled with the layers of terror and mistrust that had locked into place since she'd laid eyes on the reptile. Pearly teeth clenched in her soft white muzzle before it opened again, her hooves nervously clasping together and pressing against her chest.

"If I said yes," she breathed, "What exactly _could_ be done about it?" She suppressed a shudder as a strange fire blazed in the crocodile's eyes.

"Why, a whole lotta things," answered Stubbs, "Anythin' ya can come up with, really. Same goes for that fox and bunny." Dawn's fingers clenched around her palms. Temptation fluttered forth and teased her brain with visions of a broken lion pulled from office by a frenzied mob; a speechless fox and a sobbing rabbit disgraced and thrown behind bars. Baleful eyes twinkled behind oversized glasses as her lips curved into the ghost of a smile. They had passed through her mind before, but only as bitter fantasies borne of spite. The mere possibility that she could make them reality pulled at every fiber of her being. They'd taken everything from her. If there was any way of getting back at them, making them suffer like she had...

Her train of thought skidded to a halt as she looked up at Stubbs, her gaze turned shrewd and filled with suspicion.

"You're sure you could make…something happen?" The crocodile leaned forward over the table and winked a leathery lid over an oily marble eye.

"Absolutely," he sang, "I have my ways." The table trembled as he pushed himself away and swaggered over to the wall. "I got a few systems worked out. Lemme show ya somethin'." The titanic reptile slunk over to something that had evaded Dawn's eyes until now. What appeared to be the remains of a payphone had been mounted high on the stone wall, the casing broken and beaten with age and surrounded by bundled masses of frayed wires that trailed off into the darkness of the chamber's vaulted ceiling. Stubbs pulled the phone off of the hook—or at least, part of it. The old black handled thing had been cut in half, jury-rigged into something reminiscent of the earliest telephones. The stiff ringlets of plastic wire stretched as the crocodile raised it to his ear, turning his snout to the speaker and carefully needling the tips of his digits over a tarnished keypad.

Dawn was honestly surprised when she heard a faint ring buzzing from the machine. Stubbs grinned as someone picked up, and heartily pouring his honeyed voice into the speaker.

"Hello there, Mr. Weselton…" He paused for a moment. "Yes, Weaselton. I apologize."

Dawn's ears rose at the name, eyes flashing in recognition. She hadn't heard what had become of Doug's supplier aside from a few mentions in news stories of how she'd been thwarted.

"I have a guest with me today, and was wondering if ya could pick up somethin' for 'em. Hold on." An eager ivory grin swung back to face Dawn. "What would ya like to eat?"

The mere mention of food made Dawn's stomach cringe with a hollowness she hadn't noticed until now. The ewe stared dumbly at the crocodile for a moment as she tried to find words. For the first time in almost a year she had a choice in what she ate, and now that she did hundreds of options sprang up at once, each one as tantalizing from the last, all screaming out to be picked.

"Uh…A-a grass-burger…"

"From where?"

"Mcdoenalds!" the ewe suddenly blurted, crawling over the table to its edge on shaking limbs, "A number one, extra large, extra fries, ketchup and a large Cola! Please!" Dawn gritted her teeth and looked away to hide the faint redness of her cheeks. She hadn't meant to sound so desperate. But she felt ravenous, and the aspect of eating something that wasn't prison food greatly appealed to her. Stubbs smiled and turned back to the phone.

"Gonna need ya to go down to McDoenalds, Mr. Weaselton, and get us a Number one, extra large, extra fries, ketchup, aaand~…a large Cola." His claw slithered down into one of the many pockets on his coat and pulled out a polished piece of brass; an old alarm clock that had been reworked into something like a pocket watch and hung from a length of chain. "And could ya get that to us in…ten or fifteen minutes. Take that to the spot on Moss Boulevard. Thanks. Goodbye." The receiver clanged as Stubbs hung up and shifted his gaze back to his guest.

"I got some connections," he said, sliding back up to the table, "Not many, but enough."

"You said that was Weselton," The ewe slowly backed away from the edge, not taking her narrowing eyes off of the reptile, "How do you know him?" The crocodile leaned over and perched an elbow on the table, meeting her gaze with a cunning grin.

"Well now, that's somethin' I gotta thank ya for," he answered, "Saw his name in the paper after all was said and done about what ya did. Figured he could use a helpin' hand after all he'd been through." Dawn's mouth opened, but Stubbs chuckled before she could utter a single word. "And don't worry; he ain't gonna rat no one out this time."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause he don't who I am," laughed Stubbs, "Ya think I let every mammal know there's a talkin' croc under the city?" Realization quickly bloomed on Dawn's face.

"Drop points?"

"E~xactly," chimed the crocodile, "All over the city." His tail glided across the floor to the boxes underneath the shelves, the tip curling around a wad of tattered bills. A sudden flick of armored muscles landed them into the reptile's hand where powerful claws began to count them out.

"Please excuse me, Ms. Bellwether," he said, "Gotta go leave some incentive for Mr. Weselton. I'll be back shortly with your supper." The table shook as he turned away, his heavy steps carrying him off into the darkness. Dawn watched silently and clasped her fidgeting hands, her mind racing at a million miles a minute with everything that had just happened to her.

"…Mr. Stubbs…" Her plaintive voice wavered through the stagnant air and reached the crocodile, his great obelisk of a body coming to a halt.

"Yes?"

An eternity passed before Dawn spoke again.

"I'll do it."

A smile that would have chilled her blood formed itself in the shadows.


End file.
